


under layers of reflection

by fensandmarshes



Series: make a home on the blade of your knife [1]
Category: Dream SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anarchist Niki | Nihachu, Anarchist Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Awkward Conversations, Awkward Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Character Study, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gift Giving, Giving Your New Friend/Anarchist Recruit A Netherite Axe And Offering To Teach Her To Use It, Niki | Nihachu-centric, no romantic relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29239710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fensandmarshes/pseuds/fensandmarshes
Summary: “I don’t know how to use this,” Niki says, turning the axe over in her hands. The netherite blade glints in the light.Beside her, Technoblade is glacially still, like a force of nature in his aeons-old element. “So I’ll teach you,” he says, unconcerned. A shrug. Just one shoulder. It’s deliberate, efficient. “Unless you don’t wanna take up arms. That’s fine too.”Or: Techno and Niki and awkward conversations. Also, they have matching hair. Canon divergent after Doomsday/the third L'Manberg bombing; Niki leaves after burning L'Mantree and joins the anarchist commune which exists because I say it does.
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Technoblade
Series: make a home on the blade of your knife [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151729
Comments: 53
Kudos: 216





	under layers of reflection

**Author's Note:**

> speedran this to convince myself i can still write fics. unedited we die like l'manberg. 
> 
> this fic is specifically about the characters roleplayed on the dsmp, and should not be taken as legitimate attempts to represent the irl ccs!!

“I don’t know how to use this,” Niki says, turning the axe over in her hands. The netherite blade glints in the light.

Beside her, Technoblade is glacially still, like a force of nature in his aeons-old element. “So I’ll teach you,” he says, unconcerned. A shrug. Just one shoulder. It’s deliberate, efficient. “Unless you don’t wanna take up arms. That’s fine too.”

Niki is half Technoblade’s height, or so it seems, and in his shadow she feels very, very small. And yet they’re wearing the same colours. And she is brave, and always has been, and so she has the courage to look him in the eye; she sees the way his eyes dart to the side, uncomfortable. It’s just the two of them down here, in this cavern below the beginnings of the commune, lit only by lanterns and filled with walls upon walls of chests. High above, Niki has laid the first stone foundations of her new bakery.

“I would like to learn,” she admits. “Not because I want to hurt people -”

There’s something wry in Technoblade’s downcast stare, at that.

“- But it would make me feel safer,” she murmurs. “To have the option.”

“Here,” Technoblade says, voice caught into a murmur that softens the rough edges of his accent, lyrical as though he’s reading from an ancient text, “you won’t need it. No one will make you do  _ anything _ you don’t want to do.”

Niki catches her own reflection, in the blade of the axe. The violet enchantment casts a strange tint over her hair - newly pink. (She and Techno match, now. It’s the kind of thing Wil would have pointed out. The blood god and Niki the baker, with hair of the same colour - maybe they can braid it together sometime, she thinks, and stifles a hysterical laugh.)

_ Here is safe, _ she thinks. Because she is part of the Syndicate now, and has built herself a little hut in the commune, and her first loaf of bread is rising in its back room. When the time comes, she will break it with her new friends. _ Here is a special place. _

Wil and Techno were twins, she remembers. Always bound to their ideals.

She tilts the axe, contemplative, and the shift means that suddenly she can see Technoblade in its reflection - upside-down, because of the way the light refracts, or something. The lanternlight, turning back on itself, lending the feared blood god a strange humanity. Faces are always different if you see them inverted. Like this, Technoblade is familiar, and visibly feeling the awkwardness of the moment, and the glacial stillness breaks as he swallows. In her periphery, he shuffles his feet.

Niki saw herself inverted, that night that this man destroyed her country for the third and final time. She supposes this was always meant to be. 

“It’s very nice of you to offer to teach me,” she says, and smiles at Techno in a way she hopes will help him feel a little more at ease. He doesn’t know her very well, of course, but she’s doing her best. “Perhaps not tonight, though - I like making cookies at night. It’s silly. I think it’s fun.”

There’s the briefest huff that Niki thinks might be a laugh. “Tomorrow, then,” says Techno, and one of his boots scuffs at the cave floor. “We’re not stopping til you can hit a target with that from twenty metres away.”

Niki’s jaw drops. She looks between Technoblade and the axe, not sure whether to be incredulous or paralysed by dread. “I can’t throw this,” she says. “I don’t have the arm strength.”

“I know,” Techno says. “It was a joke.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no, I -” She’s flustered now, off-kilter, and nearly fumbles with the axe as she turns to look properly back at Techno, feeling her tongue twist itself into knots. “It was very funny, Techno. Don’t worry.”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings,” Techno says wryly. “I can handle a little constructive criticism.”

Niki feels a laugh bubbling up into her throat from her chest, a little wild, a little panicky still. She is standing in a cave below an anarchist commune with the blood god, holding a netherite axe, discussing feelings - and it has only been a week since she burned the symbol of her country, renounced it symbolically, and she has laid the stones for a new home, and - She giggles a little, because what else can she do? 

Beneath his mask, Techno looks at her like she’s grown a second head. Suddenly her laughter is born from joy, not incredulous panic, and something clicks into place.

When she’s done, she smiles at Techno. “Tomorrow sounds lovely,” she says. “Tonight, I have baking to do. Would you like to help?”

Because she’s Niki Nihachu, and she loves to poke sleeping bears.

The blood god shuffles his feet again. It’s difficult to tell beneath the regal cloak, but Niki  _ thinks _ his hands are shoved in his pockets. “Okay,” Techno says, and Niki grins. 

“Can I keep this?” she says, gesturing with the axe.

“Maybe don’t do that with it,” Techno says, “but sure.”

“Brilliant,” Niki says.

This entire situation is ridiculous. She is countryless, and Wil is still dead, and she has renounced everything her best friend’s memory still stands for. She has burned - She burned - 

She is not thinking about that right now -

But she has a new home here, just a little hut, and there’s bread rising in the second room. It’s cold, but there are hearths enough to go around. And it’s evening, so she can definitely get started on her midnight cookies now. 

Niki straps the axe to her back, gives Technoblade another gentle smile, and turns her back on him (a sign of trust - she knows he’ll understand) to head to the ladder that leads out of the anarchist armoury.

They have cookies to bake.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments im begging


End file.
